"By itself, it's a masterpiece," said Ebbers, an associate professor of voice at University of the Pacific. "The music puts another layer of aesthetic beauty on it."

The object of Ebbers' affection is "Voices of Light: the Passion of Joan of Arc" - the 1928 silent-film epic accompanied by live orchestration, an a cappella quartet, soloists and a chorus.

Marsha Genensky shares his appreciation.

"Any time we get to do this, we jump at the chance," said Genensky, whose Anonymous 4, an all-woman a cappella vocal group, helped pioneer "Voices of Light."

Genensky's New York quartet, which specializes in medieval music, joins Ebbers, a 90-voice chorus and a 50-member orchestra Saturday in giving voice to the digitally restored "Joan of Arc" in a 95-minute program at Pacific's Faye Spanos Concert Hall.

"I can easily say, it's my dream project I wanted to do since I came here," said Ebbers, 46, in his eighth year at Pacific. "It's the culmination of a long aspiration."

The project, funded by a $30,000 grant ("and we're doing it cheaply") from the Pacific Arts and Lectures Committee, also provides Ebbers' Conservatory of Music a chance to collaborate with the gender-studies department.

Three days of programs are planned; for details, go to web.pacific.edu.

Richard Einhorn, a New York composer who wrote "Voices of Light" - it debuted in 1994 - introduces the digitally restored, 83-minute black-and-white film Saturday after leading a master class today at Pacific's Recital Hall.

"You're gonna hear something that's not too different from a Bach oratorio," said Genensky, a Menlo Park resident originally from Santa Monica who sings alto. "It's very stimulating. There's a lot of big, exciting, rhythmic sound and some very, very quiet a cappella sound. There's really a wide range of dynamics and textures. You get the essence of a silent film perfectly."

The original French movie, directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer - with Renee Jeanne Falconetti portraying the martyred Catholic saint who was tortured and executed in 1431 - remains a cinematic landmark.

Martin Scorsese, Alfred Hitchcock and Orson Welles "consider it one of the most influential films they came in contact with," said Ebbers, who has sung in "Voices of Light" 30 times at major international venues. "It's an incredibly powerful film."

When they joined voices in 1992 in New York, they were the first American women to specialize in medieval vocal music. It was an all-male genre.

They first performed and recorded Einhorn's "Joan of Arc" music in 1995 - the second of their 23 releases - and did "dozens" of tours in 1996-97.

Genensky and Anonymous 4's members had been singing Renaissance and medieval music with other groups.

" 'Oh, wow,' " she recalled. " 'This is fun. Why don't we start a program?' We didn't really mean to be the first (group). But it happened. We got the passion. In hindsight, we were pioneers. We didn't know it at the time."

Her mother, Marion, an editor and publicist, and dad, Samuel, a mathematician who runs a Santa Monica center for the partially sighted, aren't musical. Her sister is a computer programmer.

So, Genensky sort of tutored herself - singing along with Joan Baez records in her Santa Monica bedroom before "designing my own" music-folklore major at Scripps College in Claremont. She added a degree from the University of Pennsylvania.

After six months in New York City, Genenksy began befriending future group members. Needing a name for their debut, Hellauer derived Anonymous 4 from a "very silly musicological joke" riffing on the mostly unknown composers who crafted the ancient music they sing. They keep their ages anonymous, too.

"They're first in the U.S.," Ebbers said. "They caught fire because their sound is pristine and clear and their work has very high standards."

That includes Einhorn's "Voices of Light."

Mystery shrouded "Joan of Arc" for decades (a master copy burned) until an original print was located in an Oslo, Norway, insane asylum in 1981.

Since nobody knows what Joan "the Maid of Orleans' " voice sounded like, "When she speaks, you never hear a single (vocal) line," Genensky said. "It's always two parts or four parts. We're singing words written down during her trial as she actually said them. We're the little voice of Joan. Everyone else is the inquisitors and narrators."

Ebbers said the music and presentation are far from esoteric or avant-garde. He described director Dreyer as the "Mozart of film" - especially during the vividly suffering scene of Joan's immolation.

"It's new and accessible," Ebbers said. "People don't walk away saying, 'What was that?' They get drawn into the experience. It's very audience-friendly. It's very rare for a city like Stockton to get something like this. It'll be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity."